Migration has always been a way for humankind to react and adapt to changes in the natural environment. There is a growing consensus today that ‘climate change’, environmental degradation, and disasters are already driving human mobility and that this trend is likely to intensify in future. Without significant investments in climate change mitigation, and disaster prevention/risk reduction, and in boosting the resilience and adaptation to climate shocks of families and communities, millions are likely to migrate or be uprooted from their homes in the coming decades. Human mobility in this context is understood to encompass migration, displacement and the planned relocation of communities out of harm’s way, as envisaged in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This six-session course will broadly introduce students to current thinking about the interaction between climate change and human mobility. It will look at what climate change is and its projected impacts, as well as the typologies of human mobility it produces, in combination with a range of other factors. Students will become familiar with the international law and principles applicable to populations on the move owing to climate change, environmental degradation and disasters, and recent developments in this area. They will for example, learn how human mobility is treated in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Accord, relevant work streams of the UNFCCC process and other international instruments such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees and the 2018 Global Compact on Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration.
- Professor: Jose Riera Cezanne